young women experimenting with violence (some accidentally)
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher between Monday, January 25th, and Sunday, January 31st, 2021
Hello, dear reader. It’s been another week during which I didn’t get as much done as I had imagined I would (though still more than I have gotten done in recent months). I’ve made no secret of how overwhelmed my pandemic brain has been, and how poorly I’ve been coping with the grim, shutdown reality of the past year. But I think I have finally, just in the last day or two, hit on why I’ve felt so overwhelmed, at least when it comes to my film criticism.
I’ve been saying for years now that there are just too many movies being released, too many movies for even a professional like me to keep up with. But what I’ve lost in the past year is one of the things that helped me winnow down the list of films I should be thinking about reviewing. The gatekeeping of The Theatrical Release has disappeared, and — for better or for worse, for however unfair and constricting that metric may have been to all the otherwise worthy films vying for our attention — now that everything is streaming, it’s like the potential number of films I should be thinking about has ballooned. And it’s paralyzing.
Because now it’s not just movies in cinemas I have to clock: it’s everything debuting on Netflix and HBO Max and virtual cinemas and iTunes and Amazon Prime and Hulu and more. And this is only going to get more intense: Netflix, for one, has said that it will release at least one new original film every week in 2021.
I’m already exhausted by this. I love movies! Movies are my religion. But how do I manage this?
I know, I know: it’s my job to help you decide what among these seemingly endless offerings are worth your time, and what isn’t. Somehow I should be on top of all this.
I’m thinking about how to make that work. Most likely it’ll prompt some sort of stress dreams for me tonight.
Ack.
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Jan 25–31
OFCS 2020 awards winners announced
And the winners are… [read more]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, US/Can, Jan 26–31
A feminist noir revenge thriller is only partly successful… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, UK/Ire, Jan 25–29
A bonkers yet utterly riveting new documentary examines the strange case of the “video prank” that killed a dictator’s brother… [get the full rundown]
Assassins documentary review: when a murder is not a murder [pictured]
The story of the women duped into *checks notes* killing Kim Jong-un’s brother is more bonkers — and sad, and gripping — than we’ve heard. Utterly fascinating; the stuff of a Hollywood thriller. [read the review | streaming US/Can/UK, see review for links]
#Like movie review: teen feminist rage, muted
Sarah Pirozek weaves an elegant, noirish tragedy on a micro budget, but it’s far more effective as a portrait of the miserable discomposure of modern teen life than as a feminist vigilante thriller. [read the review | streaming US/Can, see review for links]
Tweet of the week…
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
reviews this week I promise:
Pixar’s latest, Soul
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, now that it’s available on demand at home
documentary My Rembrandt
and definitely more (because there are so many new films debuting on demand this week)